Motion Picture Herald (Nov-Dec 1946)

MOTION PICTURE HERALD MARTIN QUIGLEY, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Vol. 165, No. 12 TERRY RAMSAYE, Editor OP December 21, 1946 TAXES, AGAIN THE most immediate relation between government and business, including this business, is inevitably taxes. The motion picture has always paid all the taxes common to industry, and for rather a while has been paying others especially its own. The motion picture, in all of its steps, products and processes, pays the same taxes as soap and pickles and coal. Its investors pay, too, just as others do. Its workers, from the backlot to the front office, pay on incomes. But, like liquor and tobacco, the motion picture pays additionally by being singled out. Perhaps that singling out is in part because it is easy to get at, like filling station gasoline, another victim of the propinquity policy in taxation. As we have observed before, the motion picture experiences, but does not exactly enjoy, the special position of being fulsomely lauded by government for its large function of service to the people and the commonwealth, while at the same time the tax makers deal with it as though it were in the same category with gold-tipped cigarettes and giggle-water. A news article in last week's issue took cognizance of the now accelerated movement for new taxations by states and municipalities. Some years agone this paper recorded an awareness of the movement and encountered an ostrich policy which sought to escape the impending problem by evasion and suppressions. Now it becomes a subject of wide concern. The Motion Picture Association, says our Washington bureau, is promising "to aid local exhibitor units in resisting discriminatory state and municipal taxes on theatre admissions. ..." National and local concerns are rising. Meanwhile, with all of the social causes afloat on the tide of politics, and the demand for a balanced budget to end the long and costly era of deficit financing, the tax makers are going to continue hungry and eager. One of the difficulties is the old one that there is a public state of mind that movie money is easy money, and that there is a lot of it. A challenging approach to the local taxation problem is made in an article contributed to this week's issue — see the news pages — by Mr. Hugh G. Martin, general manager of the Martin Theatres, Columbus, Georgia. In sum, Mr. Martin suggests devices by which the motion picture patron may be made aware of what he is paying, how much for entertainment, how much for taxes. It is all a bit of trouble; but, if it is not made trouble, it makes no impression. Concealed taxes soon are accepted as merchandise costs, but the effect remains, whether recognized or not. ■ a ■ ft "You tracked-in a lot of Kansas when you came East," ^1 the Publisher observed as he looked up from reading our recent little piece about hog killin' time and farm food out yonder west of the Hudson. "It takes a heap o' tracking to make a reporter," the editor responded. "In this case, not only Kansas but more 'n a touch of Missouri, a snifter of Arkansas, a dash of Oklahoma, plenty of Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota, also quite a jolt of Cook County, Illinois. Manhattan has added a flavour, too, but it is not a bit better than Martini. "If I ever got homesick, I'd be hurting for all over the United States — and I can see the edge of it out the office window." ARTIST AT LARGE MR. JAMES MASON, able English actor, on this side for a holiday, has been seeing the press and saying things. So has Mrs. Mason, known to the art as Pamela Kellino. With much notable success in British cinema, they disapprove of whither it is tending in general and of Mr. J. Arthur Rank in pungent particular. It appears that they consider Mr. Rank somewhat commercial in his designs. This, of course, will be painful to both Distribution and Exhibition which function, as we all know, only for art's sake. In the course of his press attentions Mr. Mason is quoted as holding that the fans as, for instance, one would suppose, those who have so enjoyed his "Seventh Veil", perhaps are not so interested in his real personality as they are in "the sadistic, unrealistic characters I play". Mr. Mason's screen successes have been as an actor, under direction and speaking lines written for him. His press appearances in New York are under his own direction and the dialogue is his own. So he says: "Rank is the worst thing that has happened to the British industry." Meanwhile, an advertisement in the same paper says, announcing "The Wicked Lady" coming at the Winter Garden: "J. Arthur Rank presents — James Mason. ..." Reporting on Mr. Mason and his utterances for The New York Times, Mr. Thomas M. Pryor concludes: "... There is one positive quality about Mr. Mason — he doesn't lack self-confidence." f% The Newark Public Library, over in New Jersey, offers some research to reveal that 45 per cent of the inhabitants of some seventeen American cities, just a sample, seldom read books at all, adding that best sellers are commonly forgotten within a year. Some of our own reports on box office grosses tend to indicate that maybe that 45 per cent just wait to see it delivered to them better on the screen. Why should they read a book? urn* QDo you awake in the mornings with a sense of something missing, a sort of aching void, or perhaps a hole in the cosmos? Perhaps here is a clue. A graph in the acutely scientific publication, The Educational Focus, published by the Bausch & Lomb Optical Company, reveals that the nation has "a current estimated deficit of 5,700 Ph. D.'s which is expected to become a deficit of over 13,500 by 1950". The National Research Council has been compiling the figures. — Terry Ramsaye